Lost Skills?

[Dick Sanford]

For those who have asked for the link:
MSA Mornington Sanford Aviation articles "Lost skills"

Keep the RPM in the green, Happy Christmas and New Year from Borneo. R

[DOUBLE BOGEY]

Thanks Dick. Great site enjoyed all your articles!!

[jymil]

I wouldn't generalize this as a european training problem. I did my PPL training in Switzerland and both low RPM recovery and Gov failure landings was a regular part of it. A common trick on prep flights is to disable both the Gov and the warning light to check on whether you can detect the malfunction and handle it.

[Dick Sanford]

jymil. good to hear, 'I think', as not sure I understand the 'disable' gov' and light bit. Are we talking pull gov' CB in flight? R

[jymil]

The instructor would first disable the CB for the warning light and then switch off the gov via the switch on the collective. If you're busy with something else, you won't notice that.
Of course, the Gov CB would have the same result.

I think it's a realistic scenario, since the warning light might not work properly or is hard to see (i.e. under direct sunlight).

[Dick Sanford]

Almost the same but pulling the warning light CB, the instructor is disabling other warning lights and not just the Gov'!!

[206Fan]

There's only one circuit breaker as all the warning lights run on the same circuit via a 14V bus bar. The Governor does have a separate circuit breaker but the warning light doesn't!

[jymil]

Right, you shouldn't do this for a prolonged period of time. But the pilot can also detect this fault scenario via the CHT gauge showing zero.

[Dick Sanford]

For what it is worth, my advice would be not to pull the warning/caution light CB.

[jymil]

Agreed, but does pulling the Gov CB lead to the warning light being illuminated or not ? I haven't actually checked that, I'm not an instructor myself.

[madflyer26]

If you pull the Gov CB the light illuminates.
Regards
MF26

[206Fan]

Alternately the Schweizer is a good option for people who want to manually control the throttle!

[jymil]

I think there is still a good value in having each student experiencing a knocked out warning lights situation at least once during the PPL training. Everybody is drilled to react to warning lights going on, but what if the warning lights are not working and you don't notice ? If you don't interpret a CHT gauge showing zero as a serious issue (after cross-checking by switching the Gov On/Off), then you might be in the comfort that everything is ok because no warning lights are shown, while the'yre just not working and you have no clue if there's really a problem or not.


For just testing the handling of Gov failures it would arguably be safer to unscrew the bulb (i.e. after preflight) and then pull the CB in flight so that the failure is not easily detected by the illuminated light.

[timprice]

Its only lost to the people who fly with governor's, fly a Hiller then you know you can work the throttle
If you want more modern, stick with the safest machine out there the Enstrom.

[Dick Sanford]

Do not loose sight of the primary reason for the importance of manual throttle skills and that is to prevent Low RPM rotor stall. DS.